Inhofe Statement on House Investigation Report on Benghazi Attack

Statement

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, released the following statement praising the Select Committee on Benghazi's Majority investigative report published today:

"The 800 pages of the Benghazi report released by the House confirms what I have been saying all along -- the Obama administration ignored red flags ahead of the deadly attack on our consulate and they deliberately lied to the American people about who was behind the attack. With this report, the American people can see that calls to this administration went unanswered not just once but several times. It went unanswered in August 2012 when State Department security officers warned that the Benghazi consulate could not withstand a coordinated attack. It went unanswered on Sept. 4, 2012, when Ambassador Stevens noted Libyan officials introduced a "state of Maximum alert' in Benghazi and again on Sept. 9 when Ambassador Stevens requested additional security during his visit. It went unanswered the night of the attack when Ambassador Stevens placed a call for help, saying, "We are under attack. We are under attack.' And it went unanswered in the days following when the Obama administration refused to call this horrific, deadly event a terrorist attack. While Sec. Hillary Clinton was telling Egypt's prime minister the next day that, "it was a planned attack -- not a protest,' Susan Rice continued to shift blame to a YouTube video that had a mere 50,000 views prior to her drawing attention to it. During my time as Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I heard from national security leaders in the Obama administration, to include Defense Sec. Leon Panetta, Gen. Martin Dempsey, Gen. Carter Ham and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. All stated on the record that it was immediately apparent to them that the coordinated attack on Benghazi was unequivocally terrorism.

"I applaud the hard work of Chairman Trey Gowdy and his staff on the Select Committee on Benghazi who are exposing the truth and laying all the facts before the American people to read and draw their own conclusions. I hope the outcome of this report will prevent a future administration from making the egregious errors leading up to the attack that resulted in the death of four American heroes and in the days following that spurred unrest throughout the region at other U.S. embassies. This should not and cannot happen again."

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